I went for a swallow this time! Not symmetrical like the Frigate Bird, but the center bird is going to be the new Birdeez logo.
Category: Birdeez
NoozHawk – Birdwatching Goes High-Tech with UCSB Grad’s New Birdeez App
I sat down with NoozHawk to talk about the Birdeez update and Lara Cooper did a great job of telling our whole story! Read it below or visit NoozHawk for their coverage.
From NoozHawk’s Lara Cooper:
Last fall, Jeff Simeon stood backstage, waiting to go before more than 1,000 people to make the biggest presentation of his life.
Continue reading NoozHawk – Birdwatching Goes High-Tech with UCSB Grad’s New Birdeez App
YahooFinance – Birdeez Wins DEMOgod Award
DEMO Fall 2012 really went great for us, and we feel lucky to have been picked up by Yahoo Finance!
Birdeez was awarded a DEMOgod award for their innovative product and presentation. A DEMO first, the Birdeez team was accompanied on stage by a live falcon for their presentation.
Tech Crunch – Birdeez One of the 14 Most Interesting Startups at DEMO
Birdeez was picked up by TechCrunch for our appearance at DEMO. People always seemed shocked to have a Bird app as part of their lineup. Bird watching is one of the things that drove the development of the internet! Maybe I’ll have to do a retrospective on bird watching and technology.
Ecolek’s Birdeez grew out of a student project at UC Santa Barbara. A bird in the hand is worth two on your phone, or something. The app, simply put, helps bird-watchers … track birds they see on their routine bird-watching adventures … read descriptions of the avian animals you identify, keep track of all your sightings and even tweet about it. Get it? Tweet? Warning: This app may not have quite as much utility if you’re an urban dweller. You can only identify pigeons so many times.
That last part is totally false. There are likely close over 50 species of birds near you even if you are in a city! We chose to launch the app with an American Kestrel because it is an amazingly beautiful bird you can see almost anywhere in the US. But I was hoping to get a Peregrine Falcon since that is a species that nests on City Hall in San Jose, next door to DEMO!
Read about the rest of the 14 Most Interesting Startups to Emerge from DEMO on TechCrunch.
DEMO God award winning presentation for Birdeez
So humbled that we won this award. There were a ton of great presentations, products and demos. Here is the video that won us the prize.
TechHive – The mobile age opened the door to a new way of identifying birds
Some great coverage in TechHive of our Birdeez launch!
The mobile age opened the door to a new way of identifying birds, taking advantage of the peculiar capabilities of smartphones, Simeon said. He calls Birdeez “Foursquare for birds.”
Venture Beat – EcoLek won the DEMO God Award!
We at EcoLek are amazed to announce that we won the DEMO God award for Birdeez! Our presentation really came together on October 3rd, and we were selected as one of the best! As Meghan Kelly of Venture Beat puts it:
Out of the 77 companies that demonstrated their products at this week’s DEMO conference, only five won the coveted DEMO God award. These startups don’t only have great businesses, but were awesome on stage.
We’re looking forward to taking this win and continuing to build a fantastic company. Thanks to Venture Beat and all the folks at DEMO Fall 2012 that voted for us!
Venture Beat – Today, birdwatching. Tomorrow, saving the entire planet!
EcoLek was selected to launch our app Birdeez at DEMO Fall 2012 by Venture Beat. Their coverage was really great, and it was awesome to learn that Executive Editor Dylan Tweney is himself a beginning birdwatcher!
The U.S. has an estimated 48 million birdwatchers, but 74 percent can’t identify more than 20 birds.
I’d fall in that category: I could point out a red-tailed hawk, a turkey vulture, a crow, and … a bunch of little brown birds. But with 900+ species in the country, I know I’m missing a lot.
Fortunately, there’s an app for that.
Birdeez is an iPhone app that makes it “ridiculously easy,” in the words of cofounder Jeff Simeon, to identify birds and then share your sightings on Twitter. I can only imagine that if the geeky Jack Black character in “The Big Year” had this app, he’d have powered to the top of the rankings much faster than that annoying Owen Wilson character.
Macworld – Birdeez app flies toward birdwatchers’ iPhones
Birdeez was featured in MacWorld! Here is a short quote from me.
“We’re really passionate about getting people outside, exploring nature again. Kind of unplugging from their computer screens,” he said. Simeon has worked as an environmental educator, while Toerner is a recent graduate in economics and Kuo is an electrical engineer. Their company, EcoLek, grew out of a business-school project at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
CIO – This Social, Local and Mobile App IS for the Birds
The DEMO Fall 2012 coverage for Birdeez is starting!
While some people think social, location-based mobile apps are for the birds, others might like to use them for that very purpose. That’s the idea behind Birdeez, an iOS app created by three partners in California who have birdwatchers in their sights.